Buddhism
Ignorance, madness or folly – what exactly constitutes stupidity?
In a picturesque ramble through world civilisation, Stuart Jeffries proposes some answers
How do you exhibit living deities?
The most-watched TV programme in human history isn’t the Moon landings, and it isn’t M*A*S*H; chances are it’s Ramayan, a…
India radiates kindly light across the East
William Dalrymple describes how, from the 3rd century BC to 1200 AD, India illuminated the rest of Asia with its philosophies and artistic forms through unforced cultural conquest
Eastern promises
Many suspect mystics have exploited naive westerners in search of spiritual enlightenment over the past century, Philip Hensher discovers
Into thin air
John Keay has for many years been a key historian and prolific contributor to the romance attaching to the highest…
The thinking dragon
Early on in Enter the Dragon our hero, the acrobatic Kung Fu fighter Bruce Lee, tells a young pupil to…
Sex and corpses
A great temple of the goddess Tara can be found at Tarapith in West Bengal. But her true abode, in…
Oracles, perverts and the Dirtbag Left
For 500 years the State Oracle of Tibet has worked as a kind of angry immortal advisor to the Dalai…
Zen tales and flights of fancy: Patient X reviewed
The target audience for David Peace’s new novel appears almost defiantly niche. Certainly, any readers in the embarrassing position of…
When will the West take a stand on the persecution of Muslims?
Anti-Christian persecution, for so long a great untold story, has started to gain the world’s attention. But the suffering of…
Christian Slater is mesmerising: Glengarry Glen Ross reviewed
David Mamet’s plays are tough to pull off because his dialogue lacks the predictable shapeliness of traditional dramatic speech. He…
Mixed blessings
Japan is the only developed country where people openly espouse two distinct and incompatible religions at the same time —…
Gods and monsters
Although Nepal’s earthquake last April visited our television screens with images of seismic devastation, the disaster has probably had little…
‘Money, money, money’
The Dalai Lama on Cameron’s China policy
The contagious madness of the new PC
Obsessive searching for hurt and offence will create it where once it never existed
Lost horizon
Sikkim was a Himalayan kingdom a third of the size of Wales squeezed between China, India, Nepal and Bhutan. I…
Reality games
The title of Victor Pelevin’s 2011 novel stands for ‘Special Newsreel/Universal Feature Film’. This product is made by the narrator,…
All things to all men
What did St George do? Killed a dragon, as everyone knows. And yet, as Samantha Riches points out, no mention…
